Evan Doyle

I went into Starbucks this morning to get a Grande Iced Coffee.  While I was waiting, I was looking at the wall art and noticed a theme: the one thing.  It’s repeated over and over all over the walls.

At Starbucks, their one thing is obvious.  It’s coffee.  Yes, they do pastries, tea, and other things too, but coffee is who they are.  It’s what they excel at.

Each of us need to have our one thing.  The thing we’re great at, our passion, our way of life.  For me, my personal one thing is passionately sharing with children not only what Christians believe, but why we believe it.   Our church’s children’s ministry’s one thing is raising kids to be their best physically, mentally, and spiritually.  KidzMatter’s one thing is to partner with churches to help them to make an eternal impact in the lives of kids.

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Yep, you read that right. Ryan and I have lost it. It’s been in progress for a few months, but it finally happened. We put up a rock climbing wall in our Kids Church room.

I know. You just read that and went “WHAT?!?!? They are crazy!” Yes, we know. It’s a small one, and you have to climb on it horizontally instead of vertically, but the kids love it. And amazingly, they’re actually not too rough with it. (Yours truly has not yet attempted the wall. I don’t think it would be pretty.) It is a lot of fun for the kids. This last Sunday, all in all, reminded me of a few things:

1. Kids love having fun. What’s coolest about the rock climbing wall is that the kids are enthralled with it. They’re going to find their friends and telling them to come see the new rock climbing wall. The line can get really long. It’s something that’s just so cool for them they have to remark about it to someone else.

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Today is a very important day.  It’s the day Mac users from all around the world visit the veritable “Mecca” of Mac-dom (a.k.a. Moscone West Expo Center in San Francisco), and many more gather with them via text and video feeds online.  Today is the day of the Macworld keynote address by Apple CEO, Steve Jobs.

Yes, every single blogger here uses a Mac.  We’re totally sold.  Why has Apple been able to gain such rabidly fanatical users?  The answer comes in a quote from H.J. Heinz (the ketchup guy) many years ago: “To do a common thing uncommonly well brings success.“  That’s why.  Computers and MP3 players weren’t anything new when Apple released their versions of them, but they did them radically well.  They did something so well, that the users that stuck with them were fanatics.

In the past 25 years, personal computers have gone from a few thousand users to over 1 billion users.  There are almost as many computer users as Christians in the world.  Christians took 2000 years, PCs took 25.  Why the difference?  Because PCs were so revolutionary, they spread like wildfire.

What if you could get the kids and parents in your ministry to be just that fanatical?  Aim for it.  Tell your kids that their faith is nothing to be ashamed of, but is to be shared with everyone how absolutely amazing it is.   Push your kids to that level.  You might be surprised to see a sudden explosion of growth.  Kids are the church of today, and can spread God’s love now.  But childhood is so vitally important in faith formation, you may, as a childrens’ pastor, reach more people than you could ever imagine through one small child.

Keep pushing.  Keep proclaiming.  Keep praying.

This morning I was reading an article over at Church Relevance, in which he gives this quote from Robert Stephens, founder of Geek Squad:
“Marketing is a tax you pay for being unremarkable.”

To understand the quote, you must realize that by marketing he’s talking about promotion: the ads, flyers, radio spots, etc.

This quote gave me a catalyst to begin thinking about something else.  Recently, Starbucks launched their first TV advertisements here in the US.  But consider what Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks and idol of caffeine addicts everywhere, said just a decade ago:
“By its very nature, national advertising fuels fears about ubiquity.”

Starbucks themselves have said that national ads state ubiquity.  In choosing to run these ads, Starbucks has established themselves as the McDonalds of the coffee industry.  They’ve gone back on their ideals, what made them remarkable.  Starbucks was held up as the poster child that word-of-mouth is better than any TV ad or billboard, especially if you get your words into the right mouths.  They can’t claim that title anymore.  Their rapid growth has caused a decline in quality.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d still choose Starbucks over any other coffee place, and it’s still a very awesome, remarkable coffee shop.  But they’ve fallen below what caused them to be remarkable: being better than everyone else at what they do.  So now they have to pay the “marketing tax” to maintain the hold they have.  They’ve gotten too ubiquitous, and feel comfortable where they are, a dangerous place for any business to be.

A ministry that is remarkable will get people talking, no doubt.  A one time remarkable thing won’t cut it though.  You’ve got to provide a consistent pattern of remarkability, or you’ll get a word-of-mouth blitz, then see a sharp decline.  Find out what works.  What works in LA (Los Angeles) may not work in LA (Louisiana).  What works at the church next door may not work for you.  Don’t become ubiquitous.  Allow yourself to push boundaries, go beyond, and find out your potential.  Do something uncomfortable.  Because the way I see it, remarkable is the only way to keep your ministry alive.

Last night I experienced the most amazing thing I think has ever graced my taste buds.  Better than a nice home-cooked cheeseburger.  Better than any gourmet meal.  It was popcorn.  But not just any popcorn.  This was Cinnamon Creme DrizzleCorn from Dale and Thomas Popcorn.  The second it hits your mouth, you’re engulfed in an ocean of sumptuous cinnamon-white chocolately goodness.  This is popcorn so good, you just have to share some, but desperately don’t want to do so.  And what do you know, Dale and Thomas’s tagline is even “Share Some”.

But let’s back up a bit.  Let’s hop into our handy-dandy time machine, and go back about two months.  Dale and Thomas (hereafter D&T) was giving away free $20 gift cards.  Little bells were going off somewhere in my head that I had heard D&T was good popcorn, so I signed up and got my code in a matter of seconds in my email inbox.  So it sat there until two weeks ago I got a genius idea.  Wouldn’t popcorn make a great Christmas gift?  I proceeded to buy the 12-pack sampler, with all twelve of D&T’s current flavors.  I then divvied them up and made gifts out of them, while keeping four bags for my family.

Now, back to last night.  I was craving a snack, so I pulled out the case (yes, case) of popcorn.  One bag of D&T is 12-inches long, and serves 2-4 people.  We decided on the Cinnamon Creme.  I do not know that I could ever go back to regular movie theatre-style popcorn again.  It almost seems like a sin.

D&T has not spread by multi-million dollar TV ads, magazine ads, full-page ads in the New York Times, or all-out web blitzes.  No, they’ve spread simply by word of mouth.  It just so happens, their popcorn happened to hit some very famous mouths.  They’ve included Oprah (as one of her “Favorite Things”), People Magazine, the Today Show, CNN, and many others.  D&T has a product so spectacular, so awesome, you can’t help but “Share Some”, just like I’m doing right now.

What do you do or what can you do in your ministry that will simply make it so that people can’t help but sharing it with their friends?  What game can you play, element can you add, media component can you slip in to make your ministry so totally remarkable that no one can stop telling others?  Do your kids tell their friends?  Do your parents tell their friends?

As Ryan has mentioned here before, the power of a personal invitation is paramount to any number of mail flyers, door hangers, or take-home sheets.  What is really effective in spreading the message of hope we have to offer is someone saying, “My church has this really awesome thing we do in Kids’ Church.  You should ask if you can come this Sunday.”  Getting kids (and even adults) to a point at which they can’t help but sharing it is simply remarkable.  And that’s the way I see it.